As I check in with my friends and family, I’m reminded that the self-isolation aspects of this pandemic more naturally suit my personality than others. By this I mean that I have often thought that I am on the fast track to being a recluse despite my deep love to dance and to be in the dancing community. I am wanting to be in conversation with my community mainly because I care about them versus an internal desire that motivates me to innovate the ways I can move online. In fact, through all this, I have an overwhelming call to soften my action-forwardness, to reflect, to be quiet, to simplify - I’ve caught myself thinking a lot about empathy as a honed way of listening, imagining psychic capabilities as generous meditations sent to one another. I’m realizing this feels similar to how I not just think about my mother, who has passed, but how I continue to experience her as a presence because of her absence. Of course, many folks who have been involved with my color studies immediately recognize these thoughts, but this quarantine is testing those theories by returning them not only to practice, but to personal meaning.
Honestly. I feel grounded - not unconcerned, but familiar with improvisational strategies, problem solving, listening, sitting with myself, entertaining myself (let’s be real John is the entertaining one in this house). What has come to light is how much my own dancing relies upon the energy that I read, offer, and receive by being near others. I often feel like I can smell the direction the class needs to shift, for example. While I am somewhat comfortable delving into my books and feeble attempts at drawing - doing nike fitness and going for walks - playing scrabble, considering how to play virtual charades, I find it difficult to generate a class without my community - that my sense of organizing myself is in relation to others despite my introversion. I don’t replenish by being social, but I do find my way easier with others.